ABSTRACT
The first months of 2011 gave the American public a sense of how deep-seated Islamophobia may be and how it can be used in the rough and tumble world of electoral politics to dishonor one’s opponents. Upon becoming the new Chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security in January, US Representative Peter King (R-NY) launched a congressional inquiry into the radicalization of Muslim Americans. This climaxed in March in a public hearing on Capitol Hill. The event generated a lot of heat as people objected to King’s rationale for the inquiry. Standing by remarks he made in 2004—that the vast majority of Muslim American community leaders are “an enemy living amongst us”—and in 2007—there are “too many” mosques in America— King cautioned the media not to give too much credence to what Muslim American organizations had to say about the extent of radicalization within their own community. After the hearings were over, King said in a CNN interview that “the only reason there’s any chance for propaganda coming out of the hearing” can be attributed solely to the “many professional hard-core Muslim organizations attacking” him and the congressional committee (CNN 2011).
